Systems Alliance Commander Elizabeth Dana Shepard
by Shinzo-X
Summary: A collection of shorts I write from the perspective of my current Shepard, spanning the Mass Effect series. Putting them up here on the off chance anyone else may find them interesting or enjoyable :
1. Impact

Shepard stared at the helmet.

Empty and lifeless as it was, it stared right back. The darkness inside bored into her skull. Its ceramic shell was pitted and charred. What was left, anyway: half was no more than a crater the size of her fist. The breathing apparatus was a molten lump. The visor was little more than a few blackened shards of military grade, bulletproof polymer clinging to the corners. Inside were the mostly charred remains of kinetic padding.

Flecks of dull red reflected the harsh light above, remnants of an absurdly bright stripe Shepard had painted herself in a swell of stupid pride.

It once marked her proudest day, of being named the first human Spectre. Later, someone told her it looked ridiculous. Alenko? Ash? She couldn't remember. Shepard found there were too many things she couldn't recall when she wanted them. Holes appeared in her childhood, her academy days. Her mother's face on a vid screen provoked recognition but no emotion.

Sometimes the past flashed unbidden through her mind, out of sequence and out of context until she lost track of the present. Sometimes Pressley was still on the bridge. Sometimes Garrus had no scar. Shepard dreaded the darkness of the shuttle bay, where she could feel Ashley's eyes on her back.

They were in her head but she knew in her gut those memories belonged to someone else.

Alliance Commander Elizabeth Dana Shepard died inside this helmet.

So who, then, was she?

* * *

Over the sounds of gunfire and screeching mechs, she heard her squad calling to her. She popped the heat sink, reloaded in a flash and two Blue Suns hit the ground long before her discarded clip. The squad advanced. She grinned despite herself, and beneath the deep red sun, in the stench of that alien atmosphere ripe with death and smoke she decided.

Shepard. Just Shepard. That was all she needed to be.


	2. Failure to Connect

_Sol System. Earth. Systems Alliance Temporary Living Quarters, Vancouver, B.C._

The proceedings of the past few weeks weighed heavily on Shepard, or perhaps that was simply Earth's gravity. It wasn't enough that she had been dragged deep into hell and back more times than she could count, they just had to arrest her and put her on trial for the wrongful deaths of nearly three hundred thousand batarian colonists. Being informed of her pending arrest far in advance didn't make it any easier to take.

Shepard did not take death lightly. If there were anything else she could have done for those in the Bahak system, she would have done it gladly.

But the batarians wanted blood, not words of apology, and if they were satisfied with hers then the Alliance wasn't going to sacrifice anyone else. It made sense. It still pissed her off.

She tossed aside a book she had leafed through again and again, but hadn't exactly read. She bought the little paperback when she realized she'd be around for a while; some story involving Alingon pirates and the plucky motley crew of a stranded freighter. They were making a vid based on it that was coming out sometime next year. A very grim part of Shepard wondered if anyone would ever get to see it.

Although she wasn't much for fiction or print, she thought the book would be a laugh, at least. But ink on paper just wasn't the same as a digital screen and she found herself distracted. The book was heavy and cumbersome compared to the ergonomically designed datapad.

She didn't have the patience anyway. If she could take more than two steps without knocking her shins into cheap Swedish furniture, she would spend most of her time pacing. Without regular trips to the gym to blow off steam Shepard would have gone insane within the first week.

_16:23_ blinked at her from the clock beside the narrow bed. She slouched a little in her chair and closed her eyes.

Shepard jumped when there was a knock at the door. The clock flashed _18:37_. She must have zoned out or… taken a nap. She scowled. Shepard hadn't taken a nap since she was five – she was a grown woman, for God's sake. Masking fatigue with gruffness, she called out that the door was open. The door swung inward, and when she recognized her visitor she leapt up and straightened her uniform.

"Captain Shepard," she saluted the petite woman standing in the doorway and said nothing else. Systems Alliance Captain Hannah Shepard returned her daughter's salute with perfunctory sharpness.

"Commander Shepard," she said.

"Not for much longer if the Committee has anything to say about it."

"Elizabeth," her mother chided and Shepard frowned. So much for being a grown woman.

The Captain shut the door but didn't look at her daughter. She shook her head.

"I still can't get over your silence these past two years –,"

"I was dead."

"_Don't_ remind me, Elizabeth," she slipped into a tone Shepard recognized a little too well from her pre-Alliance days. The Captain sighed and her voice softened, "Your… survival has been one of my greatest blessings, but I _worry_. I've seen what the kind of trauma you suffered can do to even the strongest of us. I couldn't help but wonder when you didn't contact me – well, I was afraid you weren't the same girl your father and I raised."

The silence hung there, a dead weight in the room.

"I'm not."

For a moment the lines in her mother's small, round face seemed to deepen. "I know, baby. We never are."

Even though nothing here was her fault, Shepard felt guilty. She wondered if she and her mother were on the same page.

Captain Shepard brushed past her daughter. She sat in the chair Shepard had vacated and took a deep breath. "I had to bury my husband far too soon," she said quietly, "You, even sooner. I'm glad to have gotten you back. It's something I never even dreamed could happen."

She sat on the edge of the bed across from her mother, feeling awkward. She had memories of this woman, but no affection. No connection. What could she say?

"I'm… glad to be back," she finished lamely. Captain Shepard tried to smile.

* * *

For those of you on Tumblr, I will probably update more frequently there!

http:/ erinraesometimeswrites . tumblr . com

(just remove the spaces)


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